New smartwatch concept uses two screens instead of one

We're well into the age of the smartwatch now and so far sales have been steady without getting anywhere close to the heights we thought they might do. Could adding a second screen persuade more of us to strap one to our wrists?

Teddy Seyed of the University of Calgary, Xing-Dong Yang of Dartmouth College and Daniel Vogel from the University of Waterloo have come up with Doppio, a smartwatch concept with two screens. The second display is actually detachable and can be fixed to the side or above the main watch face.

This chunky device isn't going to hit store shelves anytime soon, but it's an interesting idea for how smartwatches can become more innovative and more useful. Are the likes of Samsung and Apple taking notice?

Ahead of its time

The short demo video shows how the second screen can display more information about notifications or act as extra screen space for a video. You could even have two different apps running on each of the screens.

"Smartwatches may be a convenient way to access information, but interaction is challenging due to the small form factor of the screen area," write the researchers in their published paper. "We significantly extend the idea of manipulating a watch as input by adding a second face that can be attached, oriented, and manipulated around a base watch face."

With the small size of smartwatch displays and fiddly on-screen controls, it's often just easier to get your phone out for most tasks. The idea behind Doppio could be one way of getting around those problems.